Learn More - Successful Decision Making

This year I learned that I had been fighting a problem in my classroom, completely oblivious to the fact that many teachers in many different classrooms were facing the same problem. My students were disinterested and disengaged from their school work and the learning process in general. In order to address this problem I applied a psychological theory called self-determination theory to the project based learning (PBL) model of instruction. I focused on addressing PBL, ISTE and California Teacher standards throughout my research as well as creating a lesson planning template that could be used to teach any elementary content standards. The journey to successful decision making in my classroom was not smooth, but ended up being more rewarding and successful than I could have hoped for.

The First Phase - Total Chaos! In the first phase of my action research I was determined, maybe naively, to give my fourth grade students as many opportunities to make decisions as possible. We were studying volcanoes and I asked my students to collectively brainstorm a list of questions regarding volcanoes and plate tectonics. Students were then to choose any of the questions as a guiding question for a week long research project. They could choose to work independently or in a small group and they were allowed to present their findings in a screencasted or live speech, a poster, a powtoon presentation, or a google slides presentation.

I also allowed my students to manage their time independently. So as you might expect it was rather chaotic. Some students worked diligently everyday and created excellent presentations by the end of the week. Other students chose to do the majority of the work on the last day and created less than excellent presentations, and some students didn't create any presentations at all.

There was obviously some tweaking that needed to happen on my student decision-making journey. However my first round of research did give me some positive and interesting data. While the quality of their presentations was sometimes lacking, most of my students showed excellent acquisition of knowledge over the course of the project. Even though they were not solely focused on content information, the students were learning the standards and more. So they weren’t making beautiful presentations, but they were learning, which begged the question, “What is the value of making beautiful presentations, if not to learn?”

The Second Phase - The Right Fit As I was planning my second round of action research I wanted to be aware of the lessons I had learned in the first round. I knew that letting my students make decisions regarding their work was helping them to learn. But I also knew that my students had reported feeling stressed with all of the decisions they needed to make and unsure of my expectations. They needed more support and guidance to be successful decision makers.

It was at this time that I created the lesson planning template you can see in infographic form on the right side of the screen. After planning the unit I used hyperdocs as a means of delivering structured opportunities for my students to make meaningful decisions. My students were studying the California gold rush and were required to conduct web and book based research in order to create a poster presentation. Each day students were able to choose from a variety of different resources in order to gather the information they needed. These resources normally consisted of youtube videos, informational and interactive websites, and references to their textbooks. Students had to at least look at all of the resources so they could make an informed decision, but were able to choose which as well as how many resources they wanted to learn from each day.

I found this degree of freedom within the assignment was the right fit for my class. Students enjoyed the process of choosing which resources to use, but had the support they needed in order to learn as well as complete their assignment. ​

Click on the image for an enlarged version.

Lessons

How-To's

Resources

Assessment

Helpful Tools

Click on any of the images below to take you to their website.

Google Docs is an excellent tool to use when creating hyperdocs for your students to interact with while completing their research assignments.

I have found Google Classroom to be an incredibly useful tool. I use it to distribute, collect, and grade assignments in my class. It also syncs with the rest of your Google accounts which makes it very quick and easy to use.

Peekaboo Kids is a Youtube Channel which offers a wide variety of entertaining, informational videos for elementary school aged students. The videos primarily focus on science and history standards and are well liked by my students.

Kiddle is a visual search engine designed by Google specifically for kids. It offers "safe searches" which means no inappropriate material will be available to students while they are conducting research. And its combination of pictures and elementary level text makes information more accessible to students.